us here—learn how to use magic, because it’s the best weapon we have.”
“Never thought I’d wish I still had the Needle stuck in my hand,” Sloane said. “But I’m starting to.”
Over the next week, Sloane grew to despise the siphon. She hated its weight, its coldness, the feeling of the strings that pulled it tight to her knuckles. It was useless and inert on her hand no matter which working she tried. Cyrielle had given up on the magical breath and had attempted to teach her half a dozen small workings, each of which had the same result: nothing. The Resurrectionist was just a specter, a legend, but the siphon was an enemy she could see and touch.
The others were mastering theirs without much difficulty. Matt had a knack for moving objects without touching them. Esther had been clumsy with all wrist-siphon workings, but Cyrielle, in a stroke of genius, had gotten a throat siphon for her, and now Esther could mimic anyone’s voice at will.
Every morning, Sloane considered smashing the siphon with one of the books at her bedside. The only thing that stopped her was fear of the Resurrectionist and the thought of the Drain.
Sloane considered going back to the Tankard to see Mox again but decided against it. Instead she found other ways to occupy herself. She took Kyros running along the lakefront despite the frosty air. She read the stack of books she had found in her room. She even managed to drag Esther to the Art Institute, where there was now an entire wing dedicated to Art Workings. She had wandered for hours through an exhibit of photographs that turned into three-dimensional scenes when you drew close, to make you feel like you were walking around inside them. She was beginning to understand the Unrealists—how could you trust reality when reality was so easily manipulated?
The only upside to the constant siphon frustration was how tiring it was. The heavy sleep kept her clear of the worst of her nightmares, though nothing could entirely protect her from them. More often than not, she dreamed about Albie, about chasing him through empty streets or up and down staircases. In one vivid dream, he ran out into traffic on the interstate and got crushed between two semis heading straight toward each other. The whole scene had erupted into flames.
When Sloane woke up from those dreams, she gave up on going back to sleep and tried to soothe herself by reading. The three of them had gathered all the books left in their rooms and piled them in the hallway, making a little library. Sloane kept The Manifestation of Impossible Wants: A New Theory of Magic for herself, but she also picked up a collection of poetry from Matt’s room and a history text from Esther’s.
The history book covered the period after the end of World War II, the establishment of the Iron Curtain and a Cold War Sloane both did and didn’t recognize. She waited for the development of satellite technology, the Space Race, but it didn’t come; in its place, there was technology to plunge deeper underwater, to hear farther across the SOFAR channel—the level of the ocean at which sound traveled fastest—to place hydrophones deeper in the ocean without losing their efficacy. And all this resulted, of course, in the Tenebris Incident, an accident of underwater-missile testing that had spread magic throughout the world.
Sloane was sitting in the hallway one morning, the book in her lap and a half-empty cup of coffee next to her, when she heard a soft ding—the sound of the elevator arriving. Nero exited, his hands in his pocket, one thumb covered in the chrome of his siphon. His hair was combed back from his forehead, revealing lines she hadn’t noticed before. She wondered, for the first time, how old he was.
“Yes?” she said to him as he came closer.
“I have been alerted of your wandering the halls every single night this week,” Nero said to her. “I finally came to find out if you were sleepwalking.”
“So whatever magical alarm you’ve rigged, it’s on my room,” Sloane said. “Are you watching me sleep, Creepmaster 2000?”
“Creep—what?” Nero crouched next to her, his elbows on his knees. “No, I am not watching you sleep. I am simply made aware that someone has exited their living space.”
“I have insomnia,” Sloane said.
“Always?”
“Since my brother was murdered by a world-destroying lord of evil,” Sloane said. “I usually take medication for it, but I left it at home.”